Religion Versus Grace! Mark 1:1

Jesus did not come to correct behavior! Jesus came to give us a new identity! We are all adopted into a family where we learn a new and better way to live! Religion tries to change us from the outside in! Religious Zealots only reward performance! God said this is my beloved Son who I am well pleased! Remember Jesus had not done any miracles yet! Do you love your son or daughter because they are a gift to you from God or will you only love them based on an expected performance? The Holy Spirit will empower you to live a better way! Real change is an inside job! You must be born again! Jesus said we must repent and believe! This if done will change everything! Pastor Brady Boyd, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado. For the complete message go to: NewLifeChurch.org View his Podcast.

Wonderful Councilor! Isaiah 9:6

God chose to make His dwelling place with men! A councilor is one who fixes problems! My dad was my best councilor growing up as an adolescent! He rescued me many times! Kids should learn important lessons in life from their parents!  With all those close calls I had growing up God never took His eyes off me! Today many youth are exposed to a flawed view of God! There are four basic views how people view God. 1. God is a troubleshooter! We do not bother Him unless we get in a crisis! 2. God is a distant power! God is not really interested in us. This pro-active disengagement leads to many problems in marriages and home life. 3. God is a grandparent. God wants what I want! God is an ATM machine to give me my every desire! 4. God is Lord and center of my life! God is the source of all wisdom and I submit to His rule over my life! Is God a wonderful councilor to you? Are you busy and distracted by the cares of this life? I will ask God council over every area of my life! We live in cultural chaos! There are competing voices for your life! Slow down! Take time to be Holy! Pay attention to Christ! A sheep only responds to the voice of his shepherd! He will ignore all other voices! Take time to listen to the Master’s voice! People that hear from God wait on Him! John 14:26 The councilor, the Holy Spirit will teach you all things! He will remind you of everything He has taught you in His Word! Jesus was the original home schooler! Teaching requires patience, diligence, and staying with it everyday! Teaching is not a lucrative occupation! Jesus disciples were slow and rebellious! Teaching requires kindness and being intentional! The Holy Spirit teaches us and reminds us of all things! We as a church recite the Nicene Creed because it teaches us and reminds us of very important things! What do good parents do for us from the cradle to the grave? They teach us and remind us! As we take communion this morning Jesus taught us and reminded us to do this in remembrance of Him! God is personal and interested in you! That is why He came to earth! God came from Heaven wrapped in flesh! Fully God and fully man! He told us He would be born of a virgin, die on a Cross, be raised from the dead and ascend back to Heaven! He taught His disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit! The original Passover meals took hours to prepare! It was not fast food! God has taken great preparations for us! All we do is just receive the gift! Christ was broken for you yet His brokenness heals the world! At Passover in Jewish tradition the Messiah’s cup was always displayed meaning one day He would drink with us! At the Passover Jesus took the ceremonial cup and drank from it saying I am the long awaited Messiah! Jesus invites you to His table this morning! Jesus asked the Father if He could take this cup away from Him! Let thy will be done! God’s will was very costly to deliver us from our sin! Drink with Him this morning. He is a wonderful councilor and much more! No one can crash this party because everyone is invited! Source; Excerpt from Pastor Brady Boyd, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado. His complete messages can be seen on his Podcasts. Go to NewLifeChurch.org

Great Expectations! Isaiah 9:6

Our view of God will determine the challenges we are willing to accept! Whether David and Goliath or Mary the pregnant teenager in Bethlehem explaining to her husband Joseph how she got pregnant! We will be mobilized by Faith or paralyzed by fear! God is mighty and near us! If you are afraid you are believing a lie! Fear is an exaggerated view of the enemy! Faith replaces fear! Christ will replace your sin with His righteousness! The great exchange! Faith gives an accurate view of God! As we come to the communion table this morning what area of your life do you need God to be mighty in? Let Him be strong in your marriage, family, church, city, business and all else! Do not reserve any part of your life to the enemy! Abandon your sinking ship and get on the ark! Christ is King! Herod thought he was King but had a horrible end! God is our Everlasting Father! Mighty God! Shout it aloud! Say it! Confess it! Be bold! Be strong! Source; Excerpt of message given by Pastor Brady Boyd, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado. His message may be seen on the Podcast. NewLifeChurch.org

Groaning Inwardly Romans 8:22-24

We groan inwardly at the loss of life recently in Colorado Springs and California! We never solve problems through violence! We groan but yet we are hopeful! We are either consumed by fear or we are pregnant with hope! Our expectations and confidence is in a little baby carried in a pregnant mother named Mary who lived over 2000 years ago! Man’s plan for this baby was also violence! Yet on the 3rd day He rose from the dead! Our hope and faith is in Christ and our future is in Him! He will also raise you from the dead! But He wants to start today! He will never leave you nor forsake you! Your eternity has begun here on earth! Will close out your eternity without Him? If your reality is based on your mortality then you can only groan! Be pregnant with the promises He has made to you both now and forever! Source; Excerpt from message given by Pastor Brady Boyd, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado. His messages can be seen on the podcasts: NewLifeChurch.org

Human Love versus God’s Love!

Human love has little regard for truth! It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even truth, must come between it and the beloved person. Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) Assassinated by Adolf Hitler in 1945. Jesus said, “I am the truth, the way and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by me!”

Buy Straight Clothes For Christmas!

Deuteronomy 22:5  The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are a abomination unto the Lord thy God. Comment: Moses wrote the Book of Deuteronomy around 1400 B.C. So this command was given to us about 3400 years ago. Each generation tries to come up with a new perversion and think they are cool but sin is as old as man! A Canadian goose knows what sex it is and mates for life! Christmas is all about getting right with God and then living right for God and man! You can go straight for God through Christ! Merry Christmas! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com

Wisdom! Proverbs 9:10

Wisdom is the supernatural art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves in. Pastor Brady Boyd, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Comment; There are about 100 scriptures on wisdom in your Bible. There are about 12 root words that form these 100 scriptures in the Hebrew and the Greek. I will give you these root words for wisdom. Wisdom includes intelligence, discretion, understanding, knowledge, prudence and skillful ability. Wisdom includes substance, expertise, meaning and the center of anything including the will and the heart. Wisdom is the ability to separate mentally to perceive, discern, and distinguish. Wisdom means to make bare and use judgment. Wisdom is to make things clear with insight. Wisdom means to be of one mind and to set your affections on. Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

Treeless Worship Deuteronomy 16:21-22

“Thou shalt not plant a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee. Neither shall thy set up any image, which the Lord thy God hateth.” We first need to look at the Hebrew root word for the English word “groves.” The Hebrew root word translates to the word “Asherah.” Astarte is a Phoenician goddess of fertility. She was the Canaan fertility goddess believed to be the consort of Baal. The noun is most often used for the carved wooden images of the goddess. The image was associated with high places and fresh green trees. The Israelites were commanded to cut them down and burn them! False worship was a problem even to the extent that Asherah’s image was erected in God’s Temple itself! There were no trees around the temple in Jerusalem!  I witnessed idol worship during the three years we spent in India. These idol’s were everywhere! Often these huge wooden images were parked along tree lines. In the Hindu Temples prostitution was a regular business! I was offered a teenage girl in one of these temples! If you are going to worship the goddess of sex then prostitutes come with the package! To look deeper into the root of idol worship we need to go back to the Book of Genesis. If God took a rib from the man and created a woman then when they are united in marriage there is a completeness. However if you are going to make an image of a woman and worship her through sex then this is self-worship because the woman was taken from the man! Let us look at Genesis 2:9. “And out of the ground made the Lord to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God warned them that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would die! Why? God understood that they could not handle it! God knew that created beings with the knowledge of evil would sin! Let us look at Genesis 3:22. “And the Lord said, Behold the man is become one of us, to know good and evil, now lest he put his hand and take also the Tree of Life, and eat and live forever.” God had to block them from the Garden of Eden because to enter Heaven with the knowledge of evil for eternity would doom them forever! This was an act of Mercy by God! So what about the Tree of Life? This Tree represents Christ, redemption for man and eternity with God! So what did man do with Christ? They cut down a tree and crucified Him on it! This is what happens to all that eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! You commit evil and then try to do good? However God’s plan was engaged by the evil of men and brought redemption to the world! Without Christ whatever God has given to man as a gift turns to evil! All the religions of the world whether Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, ect, try to find God through their own efforts! Eating from the wrong tree! We all have access to the Tree of Life through Christ and our knowledge of evil is atoned for by His blood sacrifice on Calvary and we can live forever not separated from God but joined with Him in peace and love forever! We cannot save ourselves even though the world religions since creation have and still try! Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com